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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26175673">consequences</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/justapigeon/pseuds/justapigeon'>justapigeon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Azula is a Great Big Sis you can't change my mind, Azula is still a BAMF, Based on a Tumblr Post, Fluff, Gen, Implied Child Abuse, Kiyi is a Cinnamonn Roll, Mentions of War, Protect Kiyi, Protective Azula</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:08:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26175673</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/justapigeon/pseuds/justapigeon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Azula is the Blue Dragon of the Fire Nation, and she curls around those she loves and bares her fangs because they are hers – Kiyi is hers to train and to tickle just as Zuzu is hers to scold and to taunt, hers to protect, both of them –.<br/>She will not allow any harm to come to them.<br/>And she won't allow any of them to go a week dessert-less.</p><p>or</p><p>Kiyi goes to school and Azula finds herself with even more decrees to draft and a certain teacher to surprise with a visit.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Azula &amp; Kiyi (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>257</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>consequences</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>@azu1as inspired this.<br/>Protective Sister Azula is such a blessed concept and I live for that.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Azula sits by the Western Garden, fingertips stained black with ink and the wide sleeves of her robes tied up and out of the way. The brush traces quick words on the scroll she’ll be sending to the Colonies, the sound of bristles on paper barely louder than the falling autumn leaves.<br/>
There is a low wooden table, somewhere under that pile of documents she is working through – the never-ending work of dismantling a century of propaganda – and a teacup half filled with now cold tea beside it.</p><p>
She places the scroll aside to let the ink dry and takes up another one.
</p><p>
Azula skims through yet another report on the biased and propagandistic contents portrayed by some theatre troupes in the Southern and Eastern Provinces, rolls it up and puts it aside with those documents she must get back to.<br/>
She’ll have to start working on yet another decree in regards of theatrical representations, later that afternoon. – Azula hopes there will come a day when she will be able to accept Zuzu’s invitation to the theatre and the evening not ending with her dum-dum of a brother seething and grumbling. She knows it will, but as of now, she’ll have to write one more decree. –
</p><p>
The Princess sighs, and carefully lays down her brush to stretch a little. She’s been working for a long while, and though the silence of the garden might make her mind lose track of time, her body does feel the hours spent bent over scrolls.
</p><p>
Then, she hears the familiar sound of quick steps on the wooden floor break aforementioned silence, getting closer and closer.<br/>
Azula smiles, taking up yet another scroll – a proposal for yet another tax reform – and waits.
</p><p>
Somebody’s tiny body crashes into her back, and somebody’s tiny arms wrap around her shoulders.<br/>
She braces the impact with practiced ease.
</p><p>
“Good afternoon, Kiyi.”
</p><p>
As a response, the young girl presses her cheek against Azula’s – a sticky cheek that must be smudged in that cherry paste used to fill rice cakes, her little dragonfly has the kitchen staff wrapped around her fingers –.
</p><p>
Some part of Azula is absolutely disgusted by the stickiness and outraged that a Princess of the Fire Nation is running around the palace smeared in jam like a little rascal. She quiets it down.
</p><p>
Kiyi’s not even a Princess. She only has Roku’s blood in her vein, not Sozin’s. And she was the only daughter of an acting troupe director a year before, now she has a brother and a sister – a messed-up brother and a messed-up sister, scarred in ways Kiyi will thankfully never quite get – and is dressed in silks and forced to attend boring parties and to go to school with the children of nobles and functionaries.
</p><p>
When she had found out that her big sister was a Princess and she was not, she’d been inconsolable for a week. What child isn’t ecstatic at the prospect of being a Princess? – Except, perhaps, those already born Princesses, out of the ordinariness of a position they always held or out of the knowledge of what being a Princess actually means –.<br/>
Zuko had tentatively proposed giving her the title, one evening they had dinner with Mother and Ikem in the little house within the Palace Walls they had taken as a new home.<br/>
Ursa had been irremovable, no matter Kiyi’s pleading and tantrums.
</p><p>
Azula had been silent – little dragonfly hadn’t been raised to be a Princess, hadn’t been raised to move through the spider’s lair without getting tangled in the webs –. Though she’ll never tell, she agreed with Mother on that matter.<br/>
The world might not be at war anymore, and there is no need for child Princesses to be soldiers and generals and weapons. But the world is still not safe, and the Palace will never be.<br/>
Kiyi’s in enough danger being their sister, being Ursa’s daughter. There really is no need to add another target on her back.
</p><p>
She places the tax reform proposal back down and raises a hand to brush her little sister’s hair.<br/>
“How was school, my little dragonfly?”
</p><p>
Kiyi only buries her face deeper into the crook of her neck – and Azula is pretty sure there’s cherry jam smudged on the shoulder of her robes now – and mumbles something.
</p><p>
Azula frowns, because her little dragonfly is bubbling and bright and talks a mile a minute.<br/>
Azula frowns, because although at first she looked at her and saw Mother’s attempt at having One Good Daughter and her insides churned with something that was not just rage, she’s grown to love her little sister.<br/>
And Azula is the Blue Dragon of the Fire Nation, and she curls around Kiyi and bares her fangs because her sister is hers – hers to train and to tickle just as Zuzu is hers to scold and to taunt, hers to protect, both of them –.
</p><p>
“What’s wrong? You know I can’t help you if you mumble.”
</p><p>
Kiyi slips under her arm and falls into her lap, eyes downcast and little mouth pouting – her face is painted white with rice flour –.<br/>
“School wasn’t nice,” she says, “I got in a fight.”
</p><p>
Azula rolls her eyes and tries to suppress a smirk. Kiyi might be seven, but her mind is sharp and her tongue sharper. Fights and such are not common, but not unheard of.<br/>
– She knows one day her little dragonfly will rip councilmen and foreign diplomats to shreds with words alone –.
</p><p>
“With who was it, this time? Was Kazu bothering you again?”
</p><p>
The little girl shakes her head quickly, and her little fists clench. Whoever it was, it must have angered her quite a lot.<br/>
“It was with Mr. Zhu-Lan, the new teacher.”
</p><p>
Azula tries to suppress a smirk really hard, because the fact that her sister got into a fight with a teacher should be unacceptable, but she remembers being her age and the terror of her tutors.<br/>
She does manage to school her grin into a scowl and shake her head.<br/>
“Why did you fight with Mr. Zhu-Lan, Kiyi?”
</p><p>
Her face reddens, for embarrassment or rage Azula does not know, and Kiyi stomps her feet.<br/>
“He wasn’t doing his job propely!”
</p><p>
It takes an undeniable feat of strength to not grin again. Azula raises one eyebrow instead.<br/>
“Prop-er-ly, Kiyi. And what you mean with that is…?”
</p><p>
“He was teaching wrong things! Zuzu said we have to be taught correct things at school and I know because you spoke about it at dinner once and he wasn’t teaching correct things!”
</p><p>
Azula gently wipes her little sister’s mouth with her sleeves – the robe is dirty already anyway – and rubs soothing circles on the back of her neck, brows furrowed.<br/>
Here comes yet another royal decree she’ll have to draft this evening.<br/>
How many have they sent in the last years, reminding schools about the revised curriculum? She stopped keeping count after the tenth.
</p><p>
“And what was he teaching, dragonfly?”
</p><p>
“He was saying horrible stuff about the Air Nomads and that the Fire Nation was right in attacking them! And that Zuzu is manipu- manipulated by the Avatar! And it’s wrong because Aang is nothing like what he told and he and Zuzu are friends! And when I told him that he said I’d better behave or there would be consequences.”
</p><p>
Azula has to take a very deep breath. Some part of her wants to go pay this Mr. Zhu-Lan a visit right now – he disrespected her brother and Azula will not allow that – but it can wait.
</p><p>
Kiyi shifts and fiddles with her hands. There is more to this story.<br/>
“And what did you do then, dragonfly?”
</p><p>
She crosses her arms, pouting even more.<br/>
“I told him again he was wrong and that I would have told the Fire Lord…”
</p><p>
“And?”
</p><p>
“And he punished me because I was lying and because I was making a scene.”
</p><p>
Azula sighs, of course he thought she was lying. Kiyi has never been officially presented – no need to make her a target of gossip and assassination attempts – and the only one knowing that she is, in fact, daughter of Lady Ursa and half-sister to Fire Lord Zuko and Fire Princess Azula is the headmaster.<br/>
Apparently, he did keep his mouth shut, though he did not manage to keep his eyes and ears open enough to make sure decrees were actually being followed.
</p><p>
With that she’ll have to deal later.<br/>
Now, she has a little pouting sister to look after. – Sitting out recess is a small price to pay for friends that are her friends because they like her and not because their parents told them to, Azula thinks but does not say. –
</p><p>
Kiyi wraps her arms around her waist and hides her face against her chest.<br/>
“I didn’t get to play and he hit my hands with his stupid stick and he wrote a note for mum and dad and when they come get me this evening, they’ll read it and I’ll go a week without dessert.”
</p><p>
Azula has to take a very very deep breath. Every fibre of her being wants to go pay this Mr. Zhu-Lan a visit right now – he hit her sister and she will not allow that –. It must wait. 
</p><p>

Corporal punishment from teachers or instructors has been prohibited with the first decree on regards of the schools. Azula wonders how many teachers still hit their students and feels a headache coming.<br/>
She needs to have a little chat with the Minister of Instruction soon-
</p><p>
There are more important things now. Such as, making Kiyi smile and avoid her a dessert-less week.
</p><p>
She places a hand on her head, gently.<br/>
“Did you tell Zuzu about this?”
</p><p>
Still hiding against her chest, Kiyi shakes her head.<br/>
“He’s in a meeting.”
</p><p>
“I see. Then we can go tell him later, and we’ll talk with Mother too. What do you want to do while we wait, dragonfly?”
</p><p>
She pulls back a little, enough to look up at Azula with bright eyes.<br/>
“Can we go feed the turtleducklings? Pretty please Lala. Can we?”
</p><p>
Azula sighs, she rolls her eyes but a smile betrays her, lips stretching upwards against her will. Her little nod prompts a giggle and a kiss on her cheek.
</p><p>
Quick as a rabbiroo, Kiyi is back on her feet and bouncing around.
</p><p>
“Let’s go steal some bread from the kitchens.”<br/>
Azula proposes, earning yet another giggle.
</p><p>
Today, she makes Kiyi laugh, makes sure she gets her desserts this week – and some more, they are passing by the kitchens after all and the thought of a cherry-paste-filled rice cake is quite tempting – and talks with Zuko on the matters of how schools are respecting the decrees.
</p><p>
Tomorrow, she might surprise her little dragonfly, and pick her up from school. She’s dying to meet this Mr. Zhu-Lan.<br/>
She’s pretty sure Zuzu will have no complaints.
</p><p>
“Lala, can we get rice cakes too?”<br/>
“Oh, I didn’t know turtleducks like rice cakes.”<br/>
“These aren’t for turtleducklings! They’re for me.”
</p><p>
Azula smiles, her hand around Kiyi’s little one – she bares her fangs and curls around her, the Blue Dragon of the Fire Nation with her cherry jam stained robes –.
</p><p>
“Of course, my little dragonfly.”
</p><p>
--------------------
 </p><p> 
The carriage stops in front of the school in the early afternoon, wood painted dark red and a single moosedragon drawing it. – For the purpose of this visit, palanquins are far too noticeable, just as the Royal Carriage with its gold accents and bright red paint. –
</p><p>
From the little window of a carriage not much different from those of the nobles that have chosen not to take advantage of the cool day for a walk, Fire Princess Azula watches the children get out.<br/>
Tidy lines of uniforms that break into havoc as soon as they’re past the school gates.
</p><p>
She reads through two reports on schools, as she waits for the horde of children to be gone. Agni help them, there will be some chances in the school administration soon.
</p><p>
On the steps of the school, stands a single kid and a teacher – Mr. Zhu-Lan, no doubts, waiting for either Ursa or Ikem to talk about Kiyi’s “unacceptable behaviour in class” –.
</p><p>
Isn’t in he in for quite the surprise.
</p><p>
Azula rolls up the scrolls and puts them away in her bag. She opens the carriage door and steps out in the warm autumn sun.<br/>
Mr. Zhu-Lan stiffens, fixing his glasses. Only when Azula is but a few meters and five steps from them, does he realize that the Fire Princess is, in fact, in front of him. He lets Kiyi’s arm go, hastening to bow.
</p><p>
“Princess Azula-! What does our simple school owe the honour-? I’ll- I have to meet with this little scoundrel’s parents but I would be glad to accomp-“<br/>
He’s interrupted by Kiyi, who’s running down the stairs and into the open arms of her sister.<br/>
“Lala!”
</p><p>
She’s grinning, a mischievous glint in her eyes that has Azula chuckle as she picks her up, balancing her against one hip with only one arm.
</p><p>
“Actually, Mr. Zhu-Lan, I am here to talk about your… what was it? Oh, right, unacceptable behaviour in class.”
</p><p>
Behind his glasses, the man’s eyes widen. He’s about to bow again, but she’s quick to stop it with a flick of her hand.<br/>
“I know Kiyi said the Fire lord would take care of this, but sadly my brother was busy today. I, however, am free.”
</p><p>
Azula smiles, so very softly, as she lets Kiyi down and pats her head.<br/>
“Go wait in the carriage, my little dragonfly. I’ll have a word with your teacher and be right back, we’ll get ice cream afterwards, all right?”
</p><p>
Kiyi nods, smiling at the promise of the icy treat, and runs back to the carriage. The moment she turns her back, Azula’s smile is sharp and lightning dances across her fingertips.
</p><p>
Mr. Zhu-Lan’s face is as white as his hair.
</p><p>
“It is time for you, I think, to learn a thing or two about consequences.”
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If Kiyi and Azula made you smile a little, maybe leave a comment?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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